Excellence in Professional Service

Each year, the University at Albany honors special members of its community with Excellence Awards denoting exceptional contributions to the life of the campus. Three staff members received this tribute in 1997 for Excellence in Professional Service.

Kathryn Lowery, Financial Management and Budget

Kathryn Lowery, Assistant Vice President for Financial Management and Budget, has served the University for almost two decades and, through innovative ideas and professional growth, risen to her current role as the key management officer of the University's $200 million budget.

Leaving the corporate investment world in 1978, Lowery found in the University a way to engage two of her passions - the challenge of allocating resources in the best way possible through the classification and organization of seemingly endless bits of data; and playing a supporting role in furthering the ideals of higher education.

Her colleagues consistently attest to her successes in making those ideal realities, lauding her commitment to outreach and her phenomenal understanding of the arcane intricacies of the state budget process and of the University's fiscal management. Along with her technical skills come very human ones, being able to convey knowledge to others in a way that makes it comprehensible, infusing a can-do attitude to any problem, and engaging all with her energy and personality.

After four years of service in the Computing Center, Lowery joined the management and budget office. Largely through her efforts the office has taken on the traits of a business and program-analysis unit, focusing first on the needs of the client, and then working to identify fiscally sound solutions that make things happen for the University in the most positive ways. In the last four years she has become an essential part of the campus's financial plan, modeling and forecasting budget scenarios that she then discusses in consultation with the President and Vice Presidents.

In addition to leading her staff and serving those in her division, Lowery took on an extra leadership role in helping to make the U-Kids Day Care Center a reality. She has taken over budgetary oversight of EastNet, the SUNY-funded distance learning project. She also led discussions to revamp the Residence Halls to achieve additional revenue and much needed physical improvements.